Quick & Easy Chicken Flautas

Chicken flautas on a white tray topped with lettuce, tomato, and guacamole.

These Chicken Flautas are a quick and easy dinner recipe that only take 10 minutes to prepare! This flautas recipe uses canned chicken (no one will ever know your secret!), dried seasonings, cream cheese, salsa, and shredded cheese for a fast dinner that everyone will love.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mexican

Keyword chicken flautas, quick easy dinner recipe

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 20

Total Time 30

Servings flautas

Calories 218kcal

Author Jessica

Ingredients

2 cans (12.5 oz each) chicken drained & flaked
6 oz cream cheese softened
1/3 cup salsa
1 cup shredded cheese any variety
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon chili powder
12 8" flour tortillas

Instructions

Heat oven to 400°. Prepare a cookie sheet by lining with parchment paper or tin foil, or you can spray the pan with cooking spray.
Combine drained and flaked chicken, cream cheese, salsa, cheese, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, and chili powder into a mixing bowl. Stir together until well combined.
Spread 3 tablespoons (a large spoonful) of chicken mixture onto a tortilla. Roll up tightly and place seam side down on a cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining tortillas.
*If you use smaller tortillas then you won't need the full 3 tablespoons of filling, so adjust accordingly.
Spray the tops of the flautas with cooking spray. Don't soak them but you want them to have a decent coating of cooking spray so they will get really brown and crispy.
I also like to sprinkle some kosher salt on top of the sprayed flautas, but this is totally optional.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until they reach desired crispness that you want. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes before serving so the filling can cool and come together.
Serve with dips of your choice (sour cream, salsa, guacamole).

Video

Notes

Tortillas : I used 8" flour tortillas and got 12 flautas. If you use smaller tortillas then you will have more flautas. It just depends on how big or small you want the flautas to be.

Chicken : Don't be scared of the canned chicken. It's what makes these flautas so quick and easy to make, and you honestly can't even tell.

If you are totally against the canned chicken you can always use about 3 cups of shredded chicken or some rotisserie chicken. But again, this recipe is written for the canned chicken which is already flavored and salted. So you may have to adjust things if not using canned chicken. But try the canned chicken just once! It may just surprise you.

Cream Cheese : 6 oz of cream cheese is almost all of an 8 oz block of cream cheese. I've experimented with using the entire bar of cream cheese, but it's just way too much. So yes, not using it all annoys me too, but 6 oz is the perfect amount. You could also try using flavored cream cheese like the chive & onion or jalapeño cream cheese for some spice.

Cheese : Use any kind you want. I use either Colby Jack or Cheddar cheese. If you want some spice then use Pepper Jack Cheese.

Make It Spicy! : Add some cayenne red pepper. Use pepper jack cheese. Add additional chili powder. Use hot salsa.

This recipe has been updated in July 2021 with two additions to the recipe. I have been making these for years and found that adding onion powder and chili powder really make them that much better. So the addition of 1/4 teaspoon of chili powder & onion powder is new and I highly recommend it. Omit those two spices if you prefer the original recipe with just the cumin and garlic powder.

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